Letter to FaithPoint

Today is the National Day of Prayer. I encourage you to go to our church Facebook page – www.facebook.com/FaithPointCC and let us know what you are praying for so that we can pray with you.

This past Monday, I had the opportunity of preaching my first funeral. There are a few observations from this experience that I would like to share with you.

Death is certain. The Bible does not apologize for this. There will come a day when your earthly body will die. Thankfully, there will come a day when we will receive a glorified body and we will never experience pain, hurt, sadness, or sin ever again. It is all because of Jesus.

Our sadness and mourning over the loss of a friend, family member, or loved one should push us to Jesus. Jesus is the Prince of Peace. Jesus is the one who has sent us the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is our helper. Some translations say that he is our comforter. The Holy Spirit helps us through the process of grief and mourning.

There will be sadness if the spiritual destination of the one who has died is unknown or is hell.

There will be celebration of the life of a Christian. There is joy in knowing that there will come a day where we will be reunited with the one who has died.

For the Christian, there is no fear of death. Jesus trumped death once and for all by the power of his resurrection. If you have a relationship with Jesus, there is no need for you to fear death because you are secure in Jesus.

I would like to also share with you the notes that I preached at the funeral. I encourage you to use these for your own personal Bible study.

Read James 4:14.

There is no coincidence that life seems to travel at the speed of light. One day you are graduating high school, the next you are celebrating your 20 year reunion. One day your toddler is two years old, the next he is getting his driver’s license.

We live this life hoping somehow that we can make a mark. We hope that we can leave a legacy or influence at least one person. So, we work our life away to pursue things to satisfy us. We pursue happiness instead of joy. We pursue instant gratification instead of self control.

We chase after these things that are fleeting. These things that in and of themselves really have no purpose. We are so busy trying to live this life that we neglect even thinking about our eternal destination. Why?

We don’t want to think about death. We don’t want to talk about it. We spend our lives trying to avoid it. Because we are afraid of it. We will eat healthier, cut out bad habits, exercise, and get surgery all to hold death at bay. Then deep down inside, we know that we really can’t control when we die. In fact, we know that we really have no control over this life. In essence, we have wasted our lives. But we have spent our lives avoiding God. We want to run from God. We want to avoid the church. We want to avoid conversations with the pastor. We keep putting that off, having the mindset that we will live our life now and deal with that later. We think that we can make restitution with God when we get older or before we die.

We live with an imagination that we will live this life however we want, work when we want, get married when we want, have kids when we want, retire when we want, live life to the full and then die at a good old age.

Here is the problem.

Jesus does not ever promise that you will live tomorrow.

What Jesus does promise is that you do not have to be afraid of death.

Jesus says in Revelation 1:18: Read Revelation 1:18.

You don’t have to fear death any longer.

The gospel is good news. The good news is this.

Since the beginning of time, man has tried to satisfy the wrath of God by toiling, laboring, working to try and earn their own righteousness. To what end? It fails every time. God has said that apart from Jesus, no man is counted righteous and all your work gets you is death. That is why God sent Jesus. Jesus had to die on the cross and raise from the dead. Jesus had to satisfy the wrath of God. Because you can’t…Jesus did.

A life apart from Jesus is a wasted life.

You must heed the call of the Shepherd. Jesus says in John 10:27: Read John 10:27.

The minute you are drawn to Jesus, the minute your life is turned over to him, is the same exact minute that he holds on to you and never lets go. When you have Jesus. Jesus is all you need.

Read 2 Corinthians 6:2. Today is the day of salvation.

Do not go home today until you know for sure that you have a relationship with Jesus.